Monday, 21 March 2011

Packing the Rucksack

So hear we are with only 10 days to go until I embark upon my MdS adventure.. We thought we would have a little practice to see if everything would actually fit inside my rucksack and of coarse not be so overweight that i couldn't even lift it!!So here we go... Everything has been minimised, packaging removed etc in the hope of making things lighter and sizeable... expect for the Beans - which I would like to take but are too bulky and heavy.... :(

All my hard work on nights before actually paid off! This meant separating pills from boxes, and making up small packs of items instead of throwing everything in together!! Not a great idea?!I WILL be taking the front pack! There is not way I'm going to cope without it.. We also filled up with 2 litres of fluids so that I could feel how heavy everything was going to be...

Finished product above!! Here are the weights....

All bags & drinks weigh in at 12.7kg! OMFG! lol... I need a Sherpa!! Now you receive some extra items to carry including a heavy'ish flare.. so we reckon it'll weigh about 13.5kg on the first day!

HOWEVER.... Drinks weighed 2kg.. this will go up and down obviously ... PLUS each day I'll be eating my way through the food so that will go down in weight too :).. My main food meals weigh in at 4kg for the lot... aprox 570g lighter per day!.. I actually reckon on losing about 800g or so per day... Sounding any better?... Thought not... Ok - there WILL be pain but I am not going short on food just because I can't handle the weight!... Enter the double edged sword ;)

ps - some of you are wanting to know what I have taken with me- I will be doing a list before and after the race which I will post on here.

What have I learned by this...? UP the weight I carry to work every day for a start!.. It needs to be 10kg at least!.. The Front Pack HELPS!... it pulls the backpack up and balances out the load - I've kept it fairly light but it definitely helps distribute things more evenly... I've also learnt I may be walking for the first day or i'll be stretched out of that place in no time..lol..

OTHER: In other news I'm running again - and touch wood - all seems to be back on track with the training.. I'll do another update later this week that will concentrate more on that..